Are We Becoming Our Own Puppetmasters?

What do our online personas do to our physical-world identities? As we invest more time into developing our digital selves, is something taken away from who we are? Or something added? If you’re reading this, you spend some portion of your life online, and probably maintain an online identity or two across the various social networks. How does the creation and maintenance of those identities change your physical experience of self?

I’m curious if our participation in social networks, and specifically in creating our online identities, is creating an opportunity for us to lose our agency. We seem to relish the ability to carve out of online personalities and post an unlimited amount of information about ourselves, thinking that it is in some way a declaration of our existence and importance. I wonder if it has the opposite effect. Companies are profiting off of selling the data that we so willingly produce for free, reducing us down to not much more than commodities. And we are quick to defend our personas as legitimate extensions of ourselves, engaged in meaningful interactions that take up an increasingly greater portion of our time, energy and attention. Are we drinking our own Kool-Aid?

Digital Tribes & Cybervillages

What’s driving us to develop online identities? Maybe we’ve gotten more and more disconnected from ourselves and each other; lost in the noise and experiencing a crisis of identity. We try to reclaim ourselves, assert ourselves, and declare ourselves by shaping online personas. We supplement them with information about our interests, hobbies, preferences, and favorites. We reinforce the life of the persona with photographs, quizzes, games and status updates. We send and accept friend requests to expand the size of our digital tribes and entrench ourselves into the global cybervillage.

There is a value to this. We have a mix of real friends, people pulled up from the past, and new connections. Many fall into the category of ‘weak ties,’ becoming part of your ambient awareness, monitored somewhere at the periphery of your consciousness. We form digital social bonds through our behaviors and interactions, and there’s a feeling of being part of something substantial. It seems to fulfill some basic human needs of inclusion and validation.

The act of interacting is one thing though; the fabrication and maintenance of these identities is another.

Categories and Identity-Fixing

Are you greater than the sum of your parts? Or can you be summed up by your Facebook profile? Many hours are spent in developing the online presence – from the basic information (birthday, hometown, religious views, etc) to the various preferences (activities, favorites movies, TV shows, music, books, group affiliations, etc) to the status updates. Some would say that their Facebook profile is a fairly accurate representation of their real personalities.

My question is……”Really?”

Has our technology become that advanced, or are we dumbing down and selling ourselves a little short? Are we really ready to say that what can be expressed online represents the extent to what we can express? And are we ready to lock ourselves into a set identity, where the physical and virtual versions begin to mirror each other closer and closer?

For me, the depth of humanity runs much, much deeper than what can be expressed online. And part of being human is having fluidity, plasticity, and an ability for pure potentiality. That means that tomorrow I can choose to be different from today, to make an unexpected decision, or to change my mind completely. I am not one thing. I am not one identity. I am a system in flux. And so I’m frightened when someone is so quick to say that who they are online is who they are. Reduced to bits.

My Doppleganger (or Which One is the Puppetmaster?)

What are you willing to sacrifice in the physical world in order to maintain your virtual self? How often during your typical day do you see/hear/experience something and think to yourself, “I need to put this on Facebook” or “I’m going to tweet this.” I place value on interacting and sharing, but at what point do we become so intertwined with the upkeep of the persona that we forget how to be fully engaged in the experiences of our physical lives? How strong is the itch to update? Are you in control of your online self? Or is it in control of you?

Could you walk away?

Be An Agent, Not a Slave

I don’t know that the early visionaries of the Internet thought much about the development of virtual selves. Most of the literature I’ve read addresses the potential of developing systems to transfer and share information, not to create identities. There was an idea that a hyperconnected world would allow us to organize, filter, and gather the pieces that would allow us to make breakthroughs and solve real problems. The work of Vannevar Bush and Norbert Weiner and Douglas Engelbart suggested the possibilities for extending human intelligence, and via technology to somehow become more fully human. Perhaps we’ve been sidetracked.

We thought the Internet would provide a path to liberation, but maybe instead we’re allowing ourselves to become slaves again, just in a new medium. Perhaps it would serve us better to step back and observe what we’re doing, and ask ourselves why. Creating an online self is fine – it’s fun, it’s collaborative, it’s entertaining, it’s potentially enhancing. But identifying too deeply with the online self might be a trap. In our info-saturated world, one of our most precious resources is our attention. Attention as in where our eyeballs go, but also attention in what we think about. The ability to express yourself online does not equate Freedom if you become impotent in your ability to take action in the physical world. Think about what you’re doing and why. Think about the time spent thinking about Twitter and Facebook, and the resulting portion of time that it takes away from expressing your human agency in your life.

Use it as a tool. Use it as a means. But don’t lose sight of the big picture. At the end of the day, your true power lies in your ability to act – and that happens in the world, not in Farmville.

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31 thoughts on “Are We Becoming Our Own Puppetmasters?”

I just want to say that I think the real fun of online identity is putting up a different aspect of one’s personality and exaggerating it for effect. You spoke of changing who you were in the real world, but it’s actually way easier online. Maybe that is the trap of the internet…. it’s so easy change yourself.

I personally don’t see a division between the “two” lives, but I tend to think more holistically than most.

I think slave is a harsh word here, because the freedom we have online is unparalleled. I agree with the points you make when using it, but think considering the source of our “enslavement” will shed some light on the discussion. We are slaves to time and death first. Even with your identity potentially being remembered for the rest of history, you will die and no amount of online identity will keep your heart beating. The transfer of our enslavement from the “real” identity to the “online” identity is unavoidable. Because time exists at the foundation of existence, any identity you build on top of it is destined to be “enslaved” by it.

well, as eternal souls, i’d argue that we’re not even slaves to time and death. 😉

that’s actually kind of my point, though i didn’t want to get into the icky territory of souls and spirituality. maybe i should….

i think that it is fun to experiment with identity online, and i think that it can be an amazing learning tool…because then we can step back and realize that the performances that we weave online are not dissimilar to the performances we weave in life. to me it’s empowering to know that my personality is not fixed at all….it’s manufactured, whether conscious or unconscious. the way i behave, the things i say, the things i think – it’s all constructed. it’s not who i *really* am. when that voice talks incessantly in your head all day – is that you? are you the voice? or are you the one listening to the voice? i am coming to the realization that i am the listener, the eternal witness of the thoughts, not the thoughts themselves. it’s an ego-eradicator. and to me it’s illuminating to think that just as much as we are the puppetmaster of the online persona, if we think about it, we’re the puppetmaster of the physical person as well. the online identity is a simulation that represents the same fluidity and mutability that is the physical identity. kind of radical.

being able to see things in these terms creates a kind of freedom. when i originally was tweeting these thoughts a few weeks ago (and you gave me feedback then too!), @josephdee tweeted “incidental enlightenment?”

that’s what i was hitting on too. it’s like Techno-Buddhism. cultivating mindfulness and nonattachment by being able to view your actual identity in the same way you view the online one. each is a construct.

i remember i used to see people walking down the street in a funky outfit or with some crazy hairdo, and would think to myself ‘man, i wish i could pull that off.’ now i realize that i CAN. the only thing holding me back was my fixedness on the present identity that i was choosing to portray. at any time, we can make the decision to change. but it starts with an awareness of the situation.

i’m finding i’m experiencing a lot of personal growth since i’ve created/maintained an online presence…but i’m actively working to do so, and thinking about the process of what i’m doing and reflecting on it. it’s valuable. i’m concerned that others may simply take it for what it is, and not push themselves to look deeper. then again, who am i to ask. i just think we’re going to miss a big opportunity if we’re not asking these questions now.

thanks mark. spreading memes is one thing (which i fully support), but becoming attached to the identity is what i’m addressing here. the engagements and insights are valuable of course, but reinforcing ego is perhaps channeling our energy in the wrong direction. (see my response to jazzman91 above.)

My sense is that online personae will become integral to the evolution of our actual selves, especially in finding opportunities to expand realms of caring and sharing.

Rather than see the virtual and actual identities as tending to pull us in different ways, I think investments in each realm increasingly will be mutually reinforcing.

Augmented reality apps on our mobiles will soon enable sharing – if people in face to face encounters so choose – some or all of the other’s online persona. This may help people better sense the “whole person” of the other, as per daemons in the Golden Compass. Out of this, in many cases, it is likely that rapport, trust and co-creation may grow.

A verty interesting piece – thank you!! One of the ‘givens’ for me in my use of online technology – ever since I ran BBSs in the 1980s – has been that people who know me in the ‘real world’ will be able to recognise me as the same personality in the online world.

My interests and behaviours may change with time and circumstance, but my character stays very much the same. Whilst Social Media only reflect the outward nature of our character – ego rather than full Jungian persona – I know from experience that it is possible for an online persona to reflect with reasonable accuracy the character of someone, provided that someone is not deliberately playing games.

Just treat it like a diary; some folks write their diaries and paper based journals for effect, just like some people develop their online personas for effect.

i hear what you’re saying, and i agree that the online persona can reflect your character, but i think that this can become some kind of weird Identity Stockholm syndrome, where we identify with the online persona, and then mold the persona to fit with our perception of physical self, while molding our physical self to stay in alignment with the online persona, and it’s this neverending process of reinforcement. i think we can actual condition ourselves away from understanding that both personalities are constructed, and as a result, lose the capacity to fully express our humanity. instead we act/think/behave within the range of what we’ve defined for ourselves.

many people over the milennia have said in different ways that we are our own worst enemy, and that we tend to manipulate ourselves into being slaves in invisible chains. the chains are around our mind. i think online identities can be a dangerous trap into creating another prison of the mind.

Venessa, this is a very provocative and insightful post. While I feel no concern about the fact that my online identity is congruent with my in-person identity, what I do feel concern about is the amount of time spent pixel-gazing. Using the Internet and social media has extended the length of my day (and week) considerably. Sometimes I find I am using Twitter or emailing at night or on the weekend and I literally will hear my son or husband somewhere in another room and realize that we need to go outside and walk or play or talk. Or I will realize that I haven’t called my aging parents today or talked with a friend who is getting a divorce or attended a volunteer meeting or taken a quiet moment for reflection. For me, the soul-leakage comes in the form of poor time management in terms of my connection to the people who matter most. And that is not the Internet or social media’s fault, it’s my own — unless I do something about it.

good point, and a topic definitely worthy of its own post. i think one part of it is that we don’t spend enough time trying to determine what is truly valuable in life, and the other part is that we haven’t created adequate filters for the noise. and it’s not that we’re’ stupid, we’re just overwhelmed. i’d like to think that ALL the time i spend online is valuable (and to the degree that i’m learning something or interacting with someone or being entertained, it is). BUT – i think there’s a severe disconnect between people and the world. we somehow act as if we are separate from Nature, maybe dominant of it, or just dismissive of it. Nature being not just the rocks and trees and ocean, but each other as well. i believe there is an essence in us that runs through it all (universal energy/god/choose your terminology), and i think we’re making ourselves physically, mentally and spiritually sick through our disregard of it.

sometimes i wonder what would happen if the world got unplugged. no electricity, no electrical devices. (ok, pandemonium). but socially, what would happen? we’d probably look up and say ‘holy shit, look! people! plants! mountains! have those been here this whole time?’ and we’d be awakened that that’s all that’s ever been important.

Another insightful post. Thanks! I’m in the midst of reading Jaron Lanier’s book “You are Not a Gadget” which probes many of the same questions. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in investigating the potential downside of our increasingly digital world.

If you haven’t already, definitely check out Ondi Timoner’s documentary We Live in Public. It won top prize at Sundance last year. I think it’s relevant to your conversation in how it tracks the evolution of online identity and the roles we play in creating and perpetuating these identities. It consists of roughly ten years of footage chronicling the rise and fall of Josh Harris, an Internet pioneer during the dot.com days. He was a visionary, and I believe he created the first live webcasting site back in the mid-90s. The film’s take on the effects of technology and media on how we conceive and understand personal identity is fascinating. The lines between public and private are not just blurred, they become seamless.

It can be disturbing how easily we compromise our private selves these days – whether consciously or unconsciously – for the sake of connecting, and gaining a sense of self-recognition online. I am not trying to bash social networking services and emerging technology. In most cases we are presented with very useful tools that enhance our lives. It just depends on how you choose to use them.

A fun post, to consider, but not one that I think I agree with…Or, it is possible that I do not completely understand it. I do not consider myself as having an online persona and RW persona. My personality, for better or worse, is what it is. It is the sum of my experiences, not a snapshot in time, nor data. Whether a Facebook page, Twitter, a photograph or my voicemail message, all me, not digital me, me.

I probably spend too much time online, but it is about sharing, giving and receiving. Listening, active not passive. I made it a point a long time ago (in Internet terms) to be cautious not to become ‘brave behind email’. Which might now be called brave behind digital. The simple version is that a person in the office was kind and complementary in person, then suddenly the email zingers would start – Jekyl and Hyde. People become more brave when hidden behind digital. This was over 10 years ago. Yes, I have played jokes on friends etc.,… But, I have been careful not to be that.

My Facebook profile is a good complement to what I have experienced, more of a life stream, but not even close to my personality. For my friends and family, the sarcasm, jokes, pointed comments in isolation would be misunderstood completely, unless you actually “know” me. And to know me, is to …. well, I will just leave it at that 🙂

i didn’t do as good of a job framing this one out as i could have – or maybe the typical reader here isn’t afflicted by this problem so can’t relate. i was thinking about those that center their attention online around themselves and the building of their identities. maybe some would say that there’s nothing wrong with doing that at all, that’s it’s part of healthy socializing. i don’t know… i think of that eleanor roosevelt quote:

I’m not so sure if the online ‘self’ is a reduction so much as it as an extension. After all, in ‘real world’ we can only be in one place at a time, in one conversation at a time (some try to extend that, and almost always fail). Many of those boundaries are lifted online, allowing us to engage in dialogues and debates we would rarely have the opportunity to participate in otherwise.

Is some richness lost between the real self and the online self? No doubt. But something is gained as well.

Thanks for the thought-provoking post – we do need to dialogue more often…

Hi Venessa,
I agree with some points, e.g. the danger of getting lost in the internet, loosing ons’s attention, focus or awarness. Here I subscribe to Mary Bones’ comment. Although my father is now much more immediate with me using DM instead of email…

I think however, your leading question, your head line: “Are We Becoming Our Own Puppetmasters?” is a vital question with respect to any aspects of being social. As we are roles everywhere everytime … and there is no rolefree communication… Sure you can cheat more easily, yet some disclose more online than in their immediate relationships.

The idea of real vs. virtual, physical vs. online is in my view deceiving. We can only participate online with the respective material resources and with our bodies using the devices to use the internet. Their is no physical/nophysical divide.

And a last point: the idea of being able to reinvent unconditionally ignores us being historical social have-become-to-bes (sorry for my English). There are limits to reinvent. Otherwise, the social diffusion would be the solution to discriminations of all kind.

The quote on @Manoj_Pawar ‘s website http://www.synapticshift.com expresses quite well what I think is the greater challenge for modern selves:

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
— Oscar Wilde

Given all my reservation to many of your arguments, I truly appreciate the questions you raise here. I just think they are not refrained to e-mediated communication but have been eternal human questions and will remain to be. For language can both deceive and enlighten. Distinguishing the two is ceaseless.

i guess the point i was getting at was that we shouldn’t get too attached to identity – whether it’s virtual or physical. with online interaction, i find twitter less of a danger, b/c it’s more information driven, but a more ego-driven platform like facebook allows you to really choose to define yourself, which can be really distorting. i think this is especially true among youth.

i disagree w/there being limits to reinvent. and i’m thinking of it in terms of creating limits for yourself. if we get too attached to the idea of a set identity, we run the risk of creating constraints that don’t exist. (well, i can’t think like that, i can’t behave like that, i couldn’t possibly be spontaneous like that, or creative, and so on). there’s an unlimited potential for ingenuity.. like the conversations we’re always having about emergence & creativity & innovation – it’s there, we just have to allow ourselves to be open to it. i wanted to go deeper with this post to a more spiritual level, but kept it kind of superficial.. maybe that’s why it’s coming across as confusing…

and on your last point about it being an eternal human question…. agreed. i saw this as a potential for a meditation on ourselves… as our physical body puppeteers the online persona, so a greater self puppeteers the physical. turtles all the way down.

Another good article. The dangers, so to speak, of the online world are the same prevalent in the in-person world. We can put on different personas in the latter just as easily as we can in the former.

The challenge we all face is to show up authentically wherever we are. And for me, it’s definitely gotten easier to do as I’ve gotten older. In my younger days, I worried too much about other people’s perceptions. Now that I’m on the other side of 40, I’ve gotten over myself and just strive to me whether it’s in the digital world or in-person.

The biggest value of social media is, for some of us, it’s helped to break down barriers between our different selves (admittedly at the same time some folks are using to create alternate personas).

In earlier online days, I played the game of using aliases. In the last few years, though, I decided to show up using my own real name. Doing that causes me to examine my behavior – am I being the person I want to be and if not, then what do I need to achieve that?

There’s been another carry over from digital to my in-person life that’s a positive. Ironically, as a long-time introvert, having digital outlets has caused me to be much less shy about meeting new people.

The last trick, though, is not to become consumed by the digital life. To remember there are people right around you, in person up close and personal, to interact with. And then to be in the moment without regard to tweeting it out.

Thought provocative post — and you summed it beautifully with, “…where we identify with the online persona, and then mold the persona to fit with our perception of physical self, while molding our physical self to stay in alignment with the online persona…”.

Other than in Linkedin, I have not consciously delved into the differences between my online persona and the real me. Partly because I did not start out with a certain online persona in mind – my initial forays into the online/social world was more from my desire to interact with smart folks with diverse ideas that provided great fodder for thought and reflection.

Couple of thoughts –

* Agree with you that our personalities are manufactured to an extent. Sometimes I think that even the most “authentic” of persons are playing a charade of being authentic — like someone playing the role of a perfect interviewee to get a job.

* I agree there is nothing wrong with playing around/experimenting with your online personas — as long as one is not obsessive about it. Like Zen and the art of reflection, it is more fun to reflect on how the real you and the online you are percieved by your friends and acquaintances and what is that you are doing (or not doing) in one but in the other — and learn from it (almost like the online persona being a prototype of what you want to be — in a good way. Not talking about any fetishes or fanatics).

* No matter how much the technology advances, I don’t think my online persona will ever capture the true me (unless I become a droid). We are humans after all with an electrical & chemical machine inside us (the brain) – and how we behave the next instant is not something that can be modeled. The online persona on the other hand is fairly static — unless you consciously change it.

* Your real world persona should never be subsumed by your online persona – in which case, you are headed towards a hard fall as reality hits you at some point in life. As a corollary – Neither should your online persona stray too far from your real world persona – it will not be sustainable.

The question about identity, whether it’s a physical or a virtual, is just as old as the human being. “Who am I, cogito ergo sum and all that philosophical wannabe’isme”.
In my opinion we wouldn’t find anything useful, if we’re going continue to discuss identity on a dualistic level (physical & virtual); instead let us assume that the identity we have actually is the sum of our action and perceptions –just like Mitch Lieberman mention earlier. But don’t be afraid to be hung up on your identity either. Your identity can just as easy be a changing one as it can be a never changing rock.
About the question if we’re becoming our own puppetmasters? Hopefully! The digital universe have giving us an immense possibility to be the one we want to be. Before the world wide net ones identity was heavily influenced by the local society –now that has change! Instead our identity can now be formed globally –and for me; that is a more holistic human being. So thank you my online world for the opportunity to could express oneself –it only makes my identity on the street stronger –and a hell of a lot smarter 😉

Very interesting post, Venessa. I think your comments have done a great job drawing out the driving ideas.

In particular, I felt surprised to hear that many people assert that their online identity accurately reflects their Self. My first response to this claim sees it as a statement on their lack of critical thought regarding the nature of identity itself. Or, simply an unthinking exaggeration.
To believe that their facebook profile could deeply represent their self indicates a complete identification with a single, social persona. Perhaps they make an even stronger statement: I am a completely consistent individual, about whom everything can be manifestly expressed. For these individuals, I don’t believe that the creation of identities through social media ties the knots of limited self; it may help tighten the rope as they invest more attention into the creation of self-defining assertions. I’ve met many more individuals who have calcified their access to the imaginal so deeply among those who do not use social media; of course this may very well arise from selection bias.
So far, this comment has focused on individuals who have already developed strong social personas. What impact has social media had upon youth going through the transition into public individuals? Do these tools the difficulty of transition to multi-self/Self awareness? Intuitively, I would say they ease this transition in at least two ways. First, by allowing many more degrees of freedom in the creation of identity. Previously, geography and communication limitations provided for a much smaller variation in identity from the indigenous surroundings. Another potential benefit, comes from insight into the constructed aspects of identity. Access to individuals practiced at online manipulation of identity presents a second, huge net gain. Not only the individuals, who can aid in the transition, the internet provides a goldmine archiving the development of these skills.

Finally pulled your blog posts out of my `To Read’ file and have enjoyed the topics you’re covering. They’re so pertinent to my life right now. Having cofounded a company that’s built a social network application and concurrently launching my blog for Women Entrepreneurs I find the last point resonates deeply – how not to become a slave.

The comments above are all fascinating insights to how people are dealing with the online vs offline world. I believe, like you that I’ve learned a ton about myself and other people with these extensions to my real life and I wouldn’t give this up for the world.

I’ve spent the last year inadvertently testing out what I’m comfortable with displaying, sharing and disclosing and battling with the private vs public face of my online personality.

Whilst I think everything I do online reflects who I am for those who have not yet met me in person, that’s what I think and I’ve been proven wrong by people who have pulled me up on the way I’ve written something that I’ve intended in a way that I didn’t.

One thing for sure is the social media/ social networking world is not going away anywhere fast and I believe the worlds are merging in many respects and it’s up to each individual to figure out where they want to fit into that, how to brand themselves, what to become engaged in and what to avoid. And more importantly how to really disconnect from time to time to remain present in our everyday lives.

Hi Vanessa, interesting to see where this conversation has led, some interesting tangents!

I like the thought that awareness of the persona might allow transcendance of the ego.

Makes me think about the question of mind-body awareness; sense of self is where it is projected, not just in the head. This is when movies and games work well – an ECG shows audience reacting as if the experience were real and as if the things afflicting the protagonist on screen afflicted them. In this sense a movie puppeteers the audience.

If awareness can be projected like that, a similarly invested avatar like our twitter personality or facebook presence might affect us similarly; things that happen to those avatars might effectively happen to us, and so the puppeteering you’re wondering about might happen at a much deeper level than we might suppose at first.

A big difference between puppeteered by an onscreen persona and being puppeteered by our online identities is that we can puppeteer our personas back; the evolution of one can feed into the other.

Our personas may also have real world agency. For example, I may ask you to online to do something for me, and many hours later you might come across my note and respond. Unlike a letter or an email, I suspect we project the existence of a person behind an online persona; particularly on realtime systems like Twitter. You might imagine that the other person could be on line, watching for your response.

That elevates my avatar to something almost like a quasi-being, since you might ascribe my potential awareness to my avatar whether I am there or not (since from your perspective I might possibly be at the controls of the avatar).

Software slightly more sophisticated than Twitter that might imbue avatars with independent action, are a conceivable and possibly revolutionary next step in social software. Surrogate player-bots found in MMOs already fill in for players while their humans are away from the game.

If our online egos are able to act on our behalf, enjoy a quasi-awareness, can be perceived as us, and can share their awareness with us from time to time, what might we become?